Where are the young woodworkers???

I don’t know if anyone else noticed, but at the Baltimore Woodworking Show this past weekend I didn’t see but a handful of children. This was so last year as well. In fact, ten years ago there were children at the shows on Saturdays and Sundays. Not so in general any more.

Now the show organizers are not in the least to blame for this because they offer free admission to children under 16 when attending with a paying adult, so it is concerning to me as to why children and indeed young people under 25 years of age are such a scarcity at venues like the woodworking shows.

So, once again (this was the same concern I had last year too), I wondered if we could turn this thing around and so I am calling on anyone coming along to the Springfield MA Show this upcoming weekend to bring along their sons, daughters, grandsons and granddaughters. If you can make this happen on Saturday I will dedicate my 2pm demonstration to woodworking with children and show  you how I trained my boys in the art. We have to get kids back into the home woodshop and on into training as craftsmen and women for adult work and it starts with us inviting them into our world of working wood. Will you do that? Will you come to the show fired up and bring them along to my booth at 2pm? Will you come along whether they are with you or not too? I will show you the first important steps to sparking their interests in woodworking and then how to sustain their interests as they grow in their love of woodworking.